


Understanding

by writingfanficlikeabus



Series: The Legend of Zelda: Across the Ages [22]
Category: The Legend of Zelda & Related Fandoms
Genre: Gen, One Shot, Queer Character, Trans Female Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-07
Updated: 2015-11-07
Packaged: 2018-04-30 11:59:55
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 843
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5163053
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/writingfanficlikeabus/pseuds/writingfanficlikeabus
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nayru and the hero, they understand each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Understanding

**Author's Note:**

> This is related to a story I will probably write sometime.
> 
> The Legend of Zelda is owned by Nintendo.

The hero is arguing again. There are screams and yells and someone crying, and, in the midst of it all, their mother saying, "oh, sweetie, you can't  _really_ be a girl, because you're the chosen hero." She says it like it's obvious, like a reincarnated spirit has a specific gender that it must conform to every time.

Nayru, listening in the other room,  _understands_ , as much as the little individuality she has left allows the one singular Nayru to understand. Because while she is also a little girl whose family members are constantly arguing, she is also a young woman who can feel the warmth of her companion Din's kisses on her lips, and someone who doesn't feel as if they fit in their own body, and a thousand other things.

The second one is exactly  _why_ she understands, far more than their uncompromising mother ever will. But she is also still the little girl, one who doesn't want her mother to be angry at  _her,_ too. So she says nothing, and just listens.

* * *

Nayru thinks her sister (because no matter what their mother says, she  _isn't_  a boy) understands  _her_ , as well. One day, after a particularly bad argument, the hero looks at Nayru and says, "I bet  _you_ don't think I'm a boy."

Nayru says nothing, but she has a feeling that the hero knows her answer.

Their mother treats Nayru like a child, but her sister understands that she can remember back thousands of years. Sometimes she sits besides Nayru and asks for her to tell her stories. Stories of past heroes, of the villains, and most of all, stories of Din.

Din is a special part of Nayru's life. Sometimes they fall in love and sometimes they don't, and sometimes the conflicting emotions of all her past lives cause Nayru to crawl into her sister's bed at night with a tear streaked face. Their mother wouldn't understand, but the hero does, in a way, and Nayru appreciates the arms that hold her when she cries herself to sleep. Her sister will never know what it's like to feel like a young girl and someone as old as time all at once, but she's there in a way that no-one else is.

* * *

They are older in a way that isn't quite tangible to Nayru when her sister comes into her bedroom crying and asks, with desperation in her tone, whether Din would think she was a girl. Nayru thinks back to the time when her body hadn't felt like her own, and how Din had smiled and offered a place for Nayru to stay in lieu of her unaccepting family.

She says yes, and the hero's face lights up in a way it hasn't in a long time.

They sit on the bed and talk about nothing much until the tear tracks dry and the hero is smiling and laughing again.

* * *

The Demon King is back, and this time there isn't anyone to stop him. Their mother won't let them out of the house, but Nayru has had a vaguely disturbing vision where her death is linked to Ganondorf leaving, so she sneaks out one day, to the place where Hyrule's soldiers are fighting. It's a bad idea; one wrong move and she finds herself standing in front of the Demon King himself. That in itself isn't the bad part, because she wanted it to happen and she hopes it will make him go. The bad part is when he draws back his spear and she closes her eyes ready to die too young for the body she's in and-

Her sister shoves her out of the way, and Nayru watches the light fade from her eyes as Ganon lifts her body up as a trophy. There's a faint smile on her lips, something that's meant to reassure Nayru, no doubt, but causes tears to fall instead. Ganondorf looks at her mockingly and screams some declaration about the hero's death. Nayru isn't really paying attention; she's too busy stumbling away from the carnage, past the shocked soldiers on both sides, but the word  _he_ permeates through her grief and it makes her feel sick, the idea that even in death her sister won't be remembered properly.

* * *

At the funeral there's a lot of talk about the brave young man, a hero who fell too soon. Nayru can only stare at the grave with a  _boy's_  name on it and think about how it's all her fault. She'll have to go find the princess now, and together they may be able to defeat Ganon. But for now, she just stares. Around her, the people of Hyrule mourn the hero who was supposed to save them, and her mother cries for a son who never really existed in the first place. It is only Nayru who grieves for her sister. As the sun sets below the horizon, she turns and walks away from the funeral and her mother, because she is the Oracle of Ages and she has a mistake to fix.


End file.
